


Agua Hermosa

by vomit_chan



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Breathplay, Carlos and Ray do not feature, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Violence, Xenophilia, merman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:16:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29716359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vomit_chan/pseuds/vomit_chan
Summary: Too scarred to be a treasured jewel, Julie expects to be sold to the pleasure houses. When she's purchased by a rich man she thinks its a reprieve, it's anything but. The man has multiple other slaves and a few creatures Julie has never seen, nor heard of before, but there is one that catches Julie's attention; something exotic, dangerous and half human, and Julie has to make it behave... or else. Can she tame the creature, or is there a way out - for both of them?
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	1. Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry for posting this like 3 fucking times my god, I was having issues with my edits saving, so I am so sorry but I promise this is the LAST post hahahaha :( 
> 
> If you see any reference to Julie being 'he' or using male pronouns, please let me know immediately! Originally, Julie was the merman and I wrote Luke as the slave, so there's portions where she's written with male pronouns so I do apologise so so so much for all of this inconvenience, I am stinky

The sun is a blazing eye overhead. In the slave pens, Julie has long since given up trying to get comfortable in the narrow stripe of shade she’s squeezed herself into. She’s not concerned about the sun or the sweltering heat she’s about four shades darker than anyone else crowded in with her. Sometimes she felt grateful for her ability to tan rather than burn, she couldn’t say the same for the rest of the slaves who were so white they were almost see through.

Normally that might be a mixed blessing. That kind of thing, along with her thick dark hair, is exotic around here. It would fetch a high price and get her sold faster so she could be out of the heat and the noise and the sheer _stink_ of hopelessness and too many bodies crowded into too-small places.  
On the other hand, it would get her _sold_ faster. _Owned_ is not a thing she wants to be, not that she’s got much choice. Of course, the pens are no picnic either. She can hear the auctioneer up on the blocks now, extolling the virtues of whatever poor idiot’s been dragged up to be bid on like a piece of meat. The bars are hard and unforgiving against her back, but she doesn’t care. They’re still a little cool and haven’t quite picked up the heat of the day.

Of course, the question of her looks is moot. She might be dark, and she might be exotic, but she’s not pretty. Not anymore. A succession of masters have seen to that. The first time they put her up on the block she was a hothouse butterfly, artfully decorated for the buyers in silks and fake glass jewels. Paint covering most of her skin to accentuate her features, ornate butterfly clips in her hair; if only she had known the price she would pay for looking how she had that day. Now it’s manacles and the crude, dirty wraps she’s already wearing, just like everyone else.

She’s scarred enough that she’s mostly certain that all she’s got in her future is pleasure. It’s a short life and an ugly one. As her pen gradually empties out, she contemplates making a suicide run when they open the door for her. It might be easier.

But all she ends up doing when a guard calls her out impatiently is _going_ , meek as a lamb. She’s had years to get the fight beaten out of her.

The full brightness of the sun hits her like a slap, and she squints against the glare. For a moment, _just_ a moment, she’s on a narrow cobblestone road lined with market stalls. The smell of cooking is thick in the air, mingling with sweat and incense and the heady perfume of the flowering tree in the square she can just barely see. The road slopes down, down, down to the sea that, from here, is hardly more than a glittering stripe of blue.

For that one moment, she’s free. She could break and run down that road. She could run and never stop.

She’s shoved up onto the stage, and her view is cut off.

Julie stands there under the sweltering sun staring straight ahead. She doesn’t look at the crowd, instead fixing on a point in the middle distance above their heads. She doesn’t need to see how they look at her, whether it’s with interest or indifference. The wooden stage is flat and even under her feet, worn smooth by the passage of hundreds of feet. She spares a momentary twinge of sorrow for how it’s become so easy not to think about things like that.

She doesn’t listen to what the auctioneer says about her. She’s heard it all before; “… _strong, still young, captured from far Northern America_. And _discipline problems…”_ , which is always just sort of hurried on at the end to account for her scars. It’s half true. Or it was, maybe, at one point.

The price the auctioneer names is the lowest she’s gone for yet. Julie keeps her gaze steady as the bidding begins. She tries not to pay attention, but once the buyers start shouting out their bids, it’s hard not to look. There’s not that much interest in her to start with, and as the minutes drag on, the first spate of bids filter out. She’s left with only two men vying for her. They don’t really look well off, either of them; they’re not owners, they’re buyers for someone else. They’ve got the signature signs of workers promoted just high enough to trade physical labour for clerical; muscle going to fat at their waists but not all of it, not yet.

Her manacles itch. Beneath them, her wrists are rubbed nearly raw Her manacle injuries are the least of her worries, if she’s sold to the whore houses she’ll suffer for years, at best, before she’s taken by the sickness that comes with a transmitted disease or a customer who is too trigger happy with a crossbow; she’d heard stories of the way the men treat the working girls. A life for some coin. Sad, really.

She goes back to staring at nothing, at the wall behind the crowd, at the sky above it and the minarets rising into it in narrow spires.  
It takes her a minute to realize that a hush has fallen over the crowd, the two bidders have stopped talking, and apparently, Julie has missed something.

There’s a third man standing, now. He’s tall, middle aged and tan skinned, dressed in some of the finest clothes that Julie has ever seen, and as Julie sucks an uneasy breath in through her teeth, the man’s servant is deep in rapid conversation with the auctioneer. The slave is tall, dark skinned, long hair – an exotic prize like Julie.

It doesn’t matter to Julie who this servant is, anyway. But this man. _This man_.

He was obviously athletic in his youth, and it hasn’t gone to seed. His jaw is strong, his eyes dark, and his back straight. He leans on a cane, a top hat on his head, Julie is familiar with this kind of man, oh yes, he’s the kind of buyer that Julie used to attract, when she was a blank canvas before cruel masters stole pieces of her to hide away. The kind with enough money to play out his whims. The kind who isn’t used to being told no. The question is what he wants with Julie _now_. She’s not the pretty thing she once was.

“Sold!” The auctioneer cries, and Julie’s question goes unanswered as the servant hands the auctioneer a heavy purse. Then, she’s being shoved down off the stage and towards her new master while they bring the next slave up.

She stands by in the hot sun while the man signs papers, and she stands by while the man is issued Julie’s deed of ownership. Julie’s trying to figure out what use she’s going to be put to. It’s not the whore house, that’s certain. The men who own the pleasure houses have better things to do than come down and buy slaves themselves and Julie doesn’t have any skills or special training, unless you count what she used to be sold for. But she’s not pretty enough to be some decorative addition to a harem anymore. Maybe a few years ago, but not now anyway.

 _Unless_.

Unless it doesn’t matter what she looks like. Unless her scars are the mark of someone who can bear a whipping and get up again and that’s what this man is _after_ ; an icy ball of fear forms in her chest, behind her lungs. There are men like that, she knows. Cruel men who want to see her bleed, she’s met some of them.  
She can’t think of any other explanation and it terrifies her, but there’s no place to run to. She’s property. It’s been ground into her long enough to stick.

Then she’s being led away. The man- his new master- gives him only the most cursory of glances. Julie follows, three steps behind, head down.

***

  
There’s a sedan chair waiting for the man and his servant, but Julie is made to walk behind. She’s leashed to it by her manacles. The cobblestones are hot under her bare feet. The curtains around the sedan chair obscure her new master as it’s carried, but it’s not long before she loses interest in looking.  
The sun keeps beating down. Her tongue seems to swell in her mouth as she’s led uphill through the winding tangle of streets, sweating all the while. She’s so _thirsty_.

Gradually they leave the cacophony of the market behind. The stink of unwashed humanity gives way to dust and orange blossoms as they mount the rising hill opposite the sea.  
Julie keeps to the shadows cast by the walls on either side of the road as much as she’s able, as much for the sake of her feet. She concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, on not faltering, and when the porters carrying the sedan chair stop, she nearly walks into it.

They’ve come to a courtyard. It’s high-walled and shaded with greenery, and as her master steps from his conveyance, an iron gate swings shut behind them.  
This must be her master’s house. It’s cooler, here, and when Julie spots the spill of a fountain glittering like diamonds in the sun, she swallows hard.  
The house rises behind the courtyard, all brick and plaster and stark white window frames. It’s old. Even from here, she can tell that the wells cut for the windows are nigh on three feet thick. This is a house that’s meant to last and has.

A shadow falls across her and Julie looks up into her master’s face. Julie can’t quite hide her flinch, but the man looks only mildly interested. Which is... it’s damned odd, actually, and Julie doesn’t know what to make of it. Usually, this is the point where she’s gloated over.  
Instead, her master – her Maestro - undoes the manacles on Julie’s wrists with a small iron key, and they fall to the cobbles with a heavy clank. The man frowns a little at the rubbed-raw patches beneath, but Julie gets the sense that it’s not offence so much as annoyance at having acquired property more wounded than he thought.

“Your name was not listed on your papers,” her master says. “What is it?”

Julie lowers her gaze in deference. It takes her a second to make her parched tongue cooperate. “Julie, sir.”

The man nods, once. “You’re voice, there’s a tilting accent. Where are you from?”

“My family came from Mexico.”

“Hmm. Never mind that, my name is Caleb Covington, I am your lawful owner and master, I do find these terms... distasteful. You may call me Caleb, if you want a more formal setting, Mr. Covington is fine. You will perform whatever duties I see fit to ask of you. If you do not, I am well within my rights to punish you however I deem necessary, up to and including death. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Covington.” Julie doesn’t raise her eyes. It’s a speech she’s heard before, and she’s more than familiar with the ins and outs. Actually, this is one of the most to-the- point version she’s had.

“Good.” Caleb waves a hand, and the servant who’d accompanied him steps forward. “William, instruct her in her duties. And have her cleaned. The slave pens are filthy, filthy, places.”

With that he sweeps away, and Julie is being led into one of the house’s side entrances. The moment she steps inside, the cool of it falls over her like water. She sighs in relief, and the servant raises an eyebrow at her. “Not built for physical labour, are you, butterfly?”

“It’s been a long time since I was a _butterfly_.” The sun’s gotten to her enough that she doesn’t think to hold her tongue. Stupid, stupid. She winces and waits for the backhand. William snorts. “That you’re not. Your best years are behind you, butterfly. You’re lucky to be owned by Caleb the pleasure recruiters were out in force today, and if nothing else you’ve got a good body.”

The tension eases out of her as she realizes that William doesn’t intend to hit her at all. That’s a good sign, at least. She doesn’t think this man is a slave, just a paid servant, and that he does not seem inclined to punish Julie for her free speech means that this is not a household that lives by the terror of their master’s hand. It’s a comfort to know.

“You can call me Willie, if you want. Everyone else does, it’s just Caleb that calls me William.”

The farther they get into the house, the more out of place Julie feels. She’s surrounded by finery: rugs and art and bright tilework, while all the while she’s filthy and sweaty and still wearing her thin, ragged wraps.

Willie takes a turn into a room centred around a long, low pool of water, and again her thirst makes itself known like a pang in her chest.

“Well?” says Willie, “clean yourself. You smell like a diseased goat.”

“That’s probably an insult against goats,” Julie mutters, and Willie laughs a little. Julie doesn’t, she knows exactly how long she’s been penned up in dank cages and barred carts with no opportunity to wash. The only clean part of her is her face, where they’d cleaned her to show off her facial features.

“I will go and get Flynn, one of the others who works here, she will help you with your womanly needs, and then we will both take you to your room.” He leaves Julie to do what she needs.

She strips off her wraps, and for a lack of anywhere to put it, folds it up on the floor. Julie is on her knees beside the shallow pool, sucking down water from her cupped hands.  
The water’s room-temperature and perfumed with lavender, and she probably isn’t supposed to be drinking it, but she doesn’t care. She’s drunk much, much worse. By the time Flynn comes in, Julie’s drunk her fill and she’s moved on to scrubbing the accumulated grime of weeks from her skin. It’s a little disgusting. The water runs off her grey, but when she’s done, she steps out of the water bright and clean and naked. Her hair is long and ragged and down past her shoulders. She has hair under her arms and her more private areas, a result of going weeks without the opportunity to preen herself.

Flynn is about the same height as Julie, darker in skin tone with long thick box braids; she’s wearing a white dress and is wrapped in gold bands. “I hear you are the new addition to our zoo.” She fiddles with a gold chain that connects to bands around her neck and waist. “How was your bath?”

“It’s nice to be clean.”

Flynn hands her a cloth to dry herself and looks Julie up and down. Julie knows what she’s looking at. She’s roped with scars, thin and wide and spiralling like snakes across her skin. It’s an ugly canvas. “You’ve seen some trouble, girl. Just how many masters have you had?”

“Too many,” Julie mumbles into the towel, and when she sees Flynn’s look, she amends it. “Seven.”

Flynn’s expression turns sour, like she’s sucking on a lemon. Julie knows why. It’s a number that’s usually only reached by the worst choices; the rebellious, the disobedient, the chronic runaways. If she’d been lucky, she’d have been sold to someone easy to please the very first time, when she’d been a prize.

She’s never been lucky.

“I’m sure Caleb knows best,” Flynn says dubiously, and exchanges Julie’s damp towel for a new set of clothes. It’s a simple cut white dress with an intricate gold pattern around the collar with matching white and gold bands to wrap around Julie’s upper arms; the markings of a slave owned to an upper-class member of society, a stale reminder of who she would always be; the fabric is nice, however, and feels soft on her skin.

“If I may ask,” Julie says cautiously, and when Flynn waves her hand impatiently, she continues. “What exactly is my purpose here?”

“Everyone’s purpose is different.” Flynn begins. “Caleb purchases the slaves for certain things, and he purchases _us_ for his own entertainment, and because he’s an avid collector. My purpose, along with my Carrie’s purpose, is to dance for him. The boys, Alex and Reggie, who you may meet later, are here to provide music and songs, Willie helps with finalising purchases. _Your_ purpose, is to serve Caleb, in any way he might want.”  
“Yes, but...?”  
Flynn frowns. “If you’re asking why you were bought, it was because Caleb Covington, if you haven’t already noticed, has a taste for the exotic in all things no matter how trivial, and you were that, as well as broken-in and very cheap.”

A rush of conflicting emotion goes through her, because that’s familiar. She can understand it and deal with it, and if she _knows_ then at least she can start steeling herself now.

 _But._

She’s had a lot of experience with owners. With masters. There’s a look in their eyes when they want her, a spark of possessive satisfaction. She hadn’t seen that in Caleb. There was only acknowledgement, not displeased, but not gloating, either.

“So I’m to be a pleasure slave?” She says cautiously, “I’d think he could afford better.”

“No, you’re not.” Flynn brandishes a straight razor. “And yes, he can. Now come over here, you’re as hairy as the goats Willie said you smelt like.” 

***

She feels almost like a new woman by the end of it. Her skin is silky smooth, completely hairless, and clothed, she can almost pretend she’s better than she is and hold her head up high. Flynn and Willie don’t bother with a tour.

As she walks behind Flynn and Willie, she’s able to see the back of Flynn’s dress; it’s almost backless, two slits in the fabric run parallel up her back, exposing separate sections; Julie wonders why the dress has been designed this way, it doesn’t look as though it’s fashionable.

Julie is led through the halls to a tall pair of double doors, and then inside. Her eyes widen. It’s a room that almost defies description. It’s at least double the height of a normal room but not as wide. The ceiling arches high above, inset with glass that lets in shafts of sunlight. There’s not much floor space, but what little there is holds piles of cushions and things like low couches fronting slightly higher tables. If there are any other doors into the room she can’t tell, the walls are covered in a series of artfully draped curtains in reds and oranges and golds.

What grabs her attention is that half the room is filled with the biggest fish tank that Julie has ever seen. It’s so big that the glaziers who made it had evidently not been able to make large enough panels- instead, the panes of thick glass are spaced like windows holding back the sea. A curved staircase leads up to the open top of the thing. Inside, she can see the shape of long seagrass waving in the current, thick as a forest, but try as she might, she can’t see a single fish.

“This is your job,” says Willie, and all Julie can do is give him a blank stare.  
“I don’t understand.”  
“You will.” He nods toward the tank, and Julie _still_ can’t see anything inside.  
“I told you that Caleb has a taste for exotics.” Flynn adds.  
Julie still doesn’t get it. She walks closer to the tank to peer in through the glass.

The water is clear, and besides the long seagrass, she can see that the bottom is covered in a mixture of sand and brightly coloured stones. A few structures made of glazed ceramic rise from the sand like the hollow shells of some massive sea-creature.

She thinks she sees something move, inside of one. Something _big_. Julie steps back on instinct.

“Your job is to care for his most favoured pet,” Flynn continues.

“What am I even- what _is_ it? What am I supposed to do?” She stares at the spot where she thought she’d seen movement, but it’s a pit of shadow under the ceramic.

“Its name is Luke,” says Willie, “and I imagine that when it decides to talk, it’ll tell you.”


	2. Lacrimosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie meets Luke, things don't go as plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> senior stinky

Flynn and Willie leave Julie there, she spends a good ten minutes just standing and staring, but whatever’s inside the tank doesn’t make an appearance.   
She spends another fifteen worrying at the hem of her new dress and wondering if she’s supposed to stay exactly where she is, or if she could go sit on one of the low couches and wait for _whatever_ it is that she’s waiting for.

She wasn’t actually ordered to do anything but stay in the room and tend to Luke’s needs. She doesn’t have the faintest idea what that entails, but there’s been nothing to indicate that the furniture is off-limits. Julie makes her way to the nearest couch with a good view of the tank and sits. The fabric covering it is strange, smooth stuff that almost reminds her of oilcloth. Like it’s meant to make the water roll off.

It’s only once she sits down that she feels the weight of her exhaustion. It’s not just physical. She doesn’t know what will become of her, here. She doesn’t know what this... _thing_ she’s meant to care for even _is_. There’s no point in worrying about it, she knows what will come will come, and she hasn’t had any control over what happens to her for a long, long time- but that doesn’t stop her from doing it.

Nothing happens, and nothing keeps happening for long enough that her eyelids start to droop. Julie sags against the back of the low couch. Her tiredness blunts her too- imaginative mind, and the last thing that flickers across her mind before she succumbs to sleep is the flash of sky she saw above a city street, and the moment when, in her own mind, she was almost free.

When she startles awake the room’s gone nearly dark. The sun has set, and the thin moonlight coming in through the skylights in the curved ceiling lets in a dull, silvery glow that’s barely enough to see by. Julie’s not sure if she’s more surprised that no one’s woken her up or that no one’s come by to yell at her.   
She stands, and winces, she must have been laying weird on the small lounge and her muscles are arguing with her as she stretches, more than that though, something in the tank is _glowing_.

Julie stares, transfixed, as whatever it is trails through the dark water. It’s a few pale pinpoints, drifting though the dark water with intent. They’re a strange, silvery-blue phosphorescent colour that makes the hair stand up on her neck. It makes her think of stories of ghosts, or kelpies that lurk beneath the water to drag down the unwary.

All she can hear in the dark room is her own breathing and the faint lapping of water at the tank’s surface. She takes one step toward the tank, and then another.   
Her foot hits something. There’s a _crash_ and she claps her hand over her mouth to stifle a shout. Julie falls on her ass, heart hammering, and then feels like an idiot when she realizes that she’s kicked what looks like a serving tray.   
The crash was a metal bowl being knocked off. Julie kneels down to put it back in place. It still has its contents, thankfully, which are... several whole, raw fish on ice. Her brow furrows, and she looks at the other bowls. One holds several slices of new bread layered with orange-blossom honey, and the other contains a stack of small, ripe plums.   
Her stomach growls. Suddenly, she he’s hungry; or, at least, she’s aware of her hunger. How long has it been since she’s last eaten? She’s not even sure, and she doesn’t even stop to think before she’s stuffing a plum into her mouth. It’s sweet, succulent, _glorious_. Juice runs down her chin and she groans at the tang of it. It’s finished in a few short bites and she discards the pit.   
She takes bread, next. It’s so soft and moist that it can’t have been baked more than a few hours ago. The honey on top is like distilled summer. How long has it been since she’s had more than gruel and salted rice porridge? Julie licks every trace of honey from her fingers, reaches for another piece and stops.

This probably isn’t _her_ food.

Her hand hangs in the air, wanting, and yet she doesn’t dare to reach for more. Slowly, _slowly_ , her hand comes back to her side.

The thing in the tank is still moving. She can tell by the lazy, figure-eight swoops of luminescence. The food, the fish, the fruit, all of it- is probably meant for whatever _that_ is. There’s a staircase curving up to the top of the tank. Julie takes a deep breath and lifts the tray. So… she’s supposed to take care of this thing? Fine. She’ll do it. How hard can it possibly be?

Navigating the stairs is a little awkward when she can’t quite see her feet. Still, she gets to the top unscathed. At the top of the tank, there’s a flat space just barely above the black expanse of the water. A landing, or a sort of platform, at least. She sets the tray down where she won’t kick it by accident.   
She looks out over the expanse of water like a dark sea. It seems so much bigger from up here. The surface is an almost calm mirror. The only movement is a slow, constant sloshing like tiny waves. The moonlight reflects off it and refracts onto the walls in sinuous, shifting patterns.

Julie can’t see the glow any longer. She kneels to peer at the water and edges closer, but there’s nothing but darkness; the moonlight doesn’t penetrate far, and what little she can see by squinting are shadowy, fuzzy shapes that she can’t quite-

Two cold, long-fingered hands burst from the surface, wrap around her neck, and drag her down.   
She doesn’t have time to take a breath. Cold water hits her like a slap. She screams and it leaves her as a string of bubbles. She thrashes and kicks and the thing’s claws leave puncture wounds in her shoulders, blood billowing out into the water, and she doesn’t notice. The only thing she has is blind terror. She tears at the unfamiliar hands with her fingernails, kicks out at nothing, and is rewarded with hitting something solid.   
The fingers choking her falter and Julie tears herself free. The surface is only a few arm-lengths away and she breaks the surface with a ragged gasp. She reaches frantically for the edge of the tank and gets halfway onto it before _teeth_ sink into her ankle. She howls and kicks and the teeth bite down harder.  
Her fingernails claw at the decking, and finally with a mighty wrench she manages to free herself. Blood streams down her calf as she scrambles back, away from the water, away from that _thing._

Her back hits the railing. Julie tries to stand, but her torn leg won’t quite take her weight. Her breath burns in her throat, and as she uses the railing to haul herself to his feet, something surfaces.

It’s almost, _almost_ human. But it isn’t.

A pair of long-fingered, claw-tipped hands curl around the edge of the decking. Arms and shoulders and a head follow, and the thing has a sharp-angled face. It could almost be called handsome, in the right light, but now it’s smiling at her with a too-wide mouth and too-sharp teeth. Julie’s blood stripes its chin almost black in the moonlight. Its short hair shines with water, and a frill of glow-tipped fins like anglerfish lures splay back behind its jaw and face in an eldritch halo.

 _This_ must be Luke.  
“Hello, Bobby,” it says, and then it seems to get a better look at Julie, and frowns. Julie is still trying to stand, but it’s not working. She tries to staunch the flow of blood instead. “I- I’m not Bobby.”  
“No, you’re not.” Luke notes the girls smaller frame and wonders how he could have mistaken her for his old handler. “A pity. I wanted to drown him.”  
It pushes itself up on its hands, hauling itself out of the water and onto the deck.

Julie’s eyes widen. The thing- _he_ , Julie supposes, it looks male enough, is almost human from the waist up, but from the waist down he has a long, silver fish tail that coils under him as graceful as a serpent.   
His fins are tipped in glowing blue phosphorescence. Luke pushes runs his claws through his hair, scratches behind his shoulder with fingers tipped with black claws. He takes a deep breath, and water streams from the glowing frills of gills like slashes along his ribs. They snap shut under dark opercula.   
Julie is transfixed. She can’t look away, but she can still feel hot blood pulsing under her hand. What _is_ this creature? She’s heard tell of things like this, mermaids and selkies and rusalka, but she didn’t think they were _real_.

The creature beckons with one claw-tipped finger. “Come here.”  
“S- so you can drown me? No.”  
“I don’t care about _you_ ; I was trying to drown _him_.” Luke beckons again. “Come here, you’re bleeding. I doubt you can stand up straight, pale thing.” Julie stays where she is, and the creature rolls his eyes, a low growl in his throat. “Stubborn. You might die.”

Then Luke does something strange. His tail is coiled up underneath him, and a sort of _shiver_ goes through him like a heat-haze shimmer. He grimaces in pain, teeth sharp and white, and his tail _splits_ down the middle, flesh melting like wax as he pulls it apart with a tearing sound. Julie presses herself back against the railing as Luke stands, wobbly at first and then confident.

Paradoxically, he looks even _less_ human now. Luke’s legs are digitigrade, half animal things that end in shapes more like sharp clawed, three-toed paws than feet. His skin glimmers with silver scales and spots of glowing blue up his thighs. He leans forward like a predator, and when he reaches for Julie, she tries to punch him. Luke catches her wrist with a grip like iron.

“Keep still, shy thing,” Luke snarls, and tears off half of Julie’s dress with a sharp yank. Julie goes into a panic. Luke, this _thing_ , is going to eat her alive. She kicks and scratches and Luke wraps himself around Julie like an eel. There’s a dizzying _twist_ and then Julie’s on her belly, with Luke’s weight on her back pinning her in place. She squirms, and Luke takes hold of Julie’s shredded leg.

Luke wraps the torn dress fabric around the wound as a bandage, and then lets her go.  
By the time Julie rights herself, Luke is sitting curled up a few feet away, his hair damp, water rolling off his shoulders. His legs have melted back into a tail. Julie prods at her leg but the bandage is tight and well tied. No blood seeps through. When she looks back up, Luke is scrubbing the last of Julie’s blood from his chin.   
The longer she looks, the more she notices the ways in which Luke is something _other_. The angle of his cheekbones, the shape of his ribs, the way his silver striped hips shade into a torso that’s the flat, pale grey of sealskin and, before she looks away, the conspicuous absence of anything resembling a cock except a sort of long, narrow slit that looks like the covers on his gills.

“What _are_ you?” Julie manages.

Luke wrinkles his nose. “What are _you_? You’re the colour of a lion seal.” His tongue presses against his teeth, and from the brief glimpse Julie gets of it, it looks _black_. “Only you don’t taste nearly as good. You’re shy like one, maybe I should call you little lion.”

“My name is Julie.” She says stiffly. “I’m human, I’m a slave.”

“You take your own kind, too?” Luke laughs, bitter. “I don’t know why I even expected more.” He spies the tray of food that Julie had brought up the stairs and snatches a fish from the bowl of ice. He bites off the entire head with a flash of vicious teeth and a snap of cracking bone. He eats it bones and all, head to tail, and as unappetizing as the spectacle is, Julie’s stomach growls. She hasn’t eaten nearly enough in too long.

Luke notices, and tosses her a plum.

When she’s eaten it down to the pit inside, Luke pushes the tray over with one clawed hand so that Julie can reach the tray as well. It’s only when every bowl is empty, and Luke is licking honey from one claw that he speaks again. “Why are you here, then?”

Julie shrugs uneasily. “I don’t really know, yet. I was only told that I was supposed to tend to you.”

“Tend to me? I hardly need tending to.” Luke makes a sharp clicking noise in the back of his throat that sounds derisive, for all its unfamiliarity. “No, you’re here for something else, I think.”

“And what’s that?”

“That remains to be seen.” Luke turns one of the bowls over and over in his hands. It’s the one that had been full of bread, Julie thinks, and apparently, he likes the shape of it, because he tosses it at the dark water. It splashes and sinks like a stone. “Tell me, what is your impression of Caleb Covington?”

Julie shrugs, cautious. “I didn’t see him for long. He seemed even-handed enough?”

“Yes.” Luke is still looking at the point where the bowl sank out of sight. “Yes, he’s very good at seeming to be a lot of things.”

They’re both silent for a moment before Julie speaks, “are you the only…”

“Animal? Monster? _Thing_?” Luke tries to fill in the blanks, “no, I’m not. Caleb likes to expand his _collection_.” The last word is spat out full of hate.

Julie wonders just how many there are, she’d only met Flynn and Willie but neither of them seemed too special, physically that is. She had met Luke and he was immediately shown to be something extraordinary. “Who else is there?”

He leaves her question unanswered, suddenly bored of the girl’s presence and says nothing to her, just disappears into the smooth water and Julie can’t see him as he slips into the long seagrass. She sits by the pool, waiting to see if he will resurface.

He doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> I do apologise for any grammatical errors, but I ask that you don't police my work or tell me what does or does not need to be rectified (unless it’s incorrect pronouns for Julie as mentioned before, roles were reversed), I am a simple person hehe, this is my story and I know what to do with it, so I'd appreciate if you just left your editing comments to yourself as I have one, thank you :)


	3. Preserve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb shows his true colours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> I won't be posting for a while as I only managed to write 3ish chapters and I am editing the last part which is gonna be full of smut ;_______; 
> 
> Again, I am so so so sos so so so sorry that I'm a big dummy and had to post this so many times, I think I was over excited with everything and how much I wanted to show you guys everything that I just didn't think properly, please forgive me

Julie doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she wakes up squinting into the sunlight that streams in through the high windows. All she can see through them is a narrow strip of sky. She has a moment of _yearning_ to be elsewhere, but she squashes it down into nothing. It’s easier not to think about things like that at all.

A shadow falls across her. “And what are you doing sleeping up here?”

Julie scrambles upright with a gasp as she recognizes that voice. She’s on her knees before she can think, hands flat on the decking below. “Mr. Covington! I didn’t see you there. My humblest apologies-”

“That’s not an answer,” Caleb interrupts.

“Oh,” Julie says, “I, er. I just. Fell asleep? I was speaking to Luke, and I was very tired, and I- I won’t do it again if it’s not to your liking, sir.”

Caleb waves off Julie’s stuttering apologies. He’s barely paying attention to her; instead, he’s looking down into the deep water. It’s then that Julie realizes that Luke is gone. He must have gone back into the tank, but if he has, he’s hiding. Julie can’t make out so much as a scale or a fin. “He spoke to you?”

“Y-yes?”

“And more than that, I see.” He nods at Julie’s bandaged leg. “That’s good, he patched you up. It means he likes you. He _did_ have a tendency toward drowning his minders.”

Julie catches her breath uneasily at that. The memory of strong fingers wrapped around her throat is a vivid one, and then she wonders why Luke had let her go at all. Maybe because she’s not really a minder, just another slave.

“He’s such a difficult creature to keep,” Caleb continues, “demanding, and wilful, and temperamental and so hard to train. But I have faith that it’s doable. The moment I saw him at auction I knew he was going to be _mine_.”

The way he says _mine_ makes the hair stand up on the back of Julie’s neck. Not because it’s strange, but because it’s too, too familiar. That’s the inflection she’s heard right before unwanted hands found their way onto her skin, the tone that’s all careless, possessive, destructive want. She _knows_ how men are with exotics, because she _is_ one, and for Luke it must be a hundred, a thousand times worse.

“And of course, he’s far too rare to damage, so training is more difficult than it should be. Very problematic.” He’s looking down into the water, and still Julie can’t see movement. Caleb gestures at Julie impatiently. “You. Slave. Call him up from the water.”

Julie blinks in surprise, and looks from Caleb to the water, and then back at Caleb. “Caleb, I don’t think he’ll listen to me. Or even hear me.”

“He can hear you perfectly well. Don’t question my orders, slave. Call him.” He doesn’t need to ask again. Julie looks down at the water. “Luke?” Nothing happens. Julie isn’t exactly surprised.  
“Again,” says Caleb.

“Luke,” She shouts louder, “come up out of the water!”  
Nothing.  
And then a fist sized stone comes flying out of the concealing seagrass like an arrow from a bow. Caleb ducks and it misses him by an inch, and the stone bangs loudly down all the way to the floor. Luke must be hidden in the long grass. If Julie squints, she thinks she can see flashes -a bit of silver here, a tail fin there.

Julie looks to Caleb. She’s expecting anger, frustration at being disobeyed, but he doesn’t even look annoyed. He looks like this was only what he was expecting. He holds out a hand, and it’s only then that Julie realizes they aren’t alone, up here. Willie is standing on the uppermost steps, a black coil of something at his side. He looks at Julie, regret in his eyes.

“My whip, William.”

Julie feels her heart seize in her chest as Willie hands it over without a word. When Caleb wraps his fingers around the grip, Julie feels cold sweat prickle on her skin; when it unspools across the decking like a fat, vicious cobra, the multitude of scars on her back sing in remembered pain.

“Surface, Luke,” says Caleb, his voice perfectly measured, almost bored, “or I’ll flay the skin from her back. It will be your fault.”

Julie’s breathing stops. She jerks up and takes an involuntary step backwards, and Caleb fixes her with a gaze so piercing she can’t move. What’s the point of this? Using one person against another is a plot as old as time, but surely Luke doesn’t care enough about her for it to make a difference?  
The tank’s surface is as smooth as a millpond. Caleb tests the whip. It cracks in the air like a snapping bone and Julie flinches.

“Dress off, slave,” Caleb says lazily, “turn around and put your hands on the railing.”

Julie obeys, mechanically. Her mind has shut down into the simplest, most essential parts of her. She stops thinking because she can’t, she _can’t_ , and while her mind is already curled up in a metaphorical shivering ball, her body knows how to follow orders.  
Taking off her dress she folds it and drops it on the floor, and her hands go to the metal railing. It’s an artfully crafted thing, all delicate curlicues, but strong. She stares at the patterns to keep from thinking of what’s to come.  
The first stripe comes without warning. It burns like fire, and Julie doesn’t hear the _crack_ of it until her back is already ablaze with pain. She sucks a breath in through her teeth. She’s been through this enough times not to scream, not at first.

“Keep count,” says Caleb, and when the next blow falls, Julie chokes out _two_.

The whip tears at her like lines of molten iron. The third blow drags a whimper from her, and the fifth a strangled yelp. Her hands are white knuckled on the metal rails and she can feel sweat beading along her hairline, feel the pain in her jaw where she’s clenching her teeth. She can’t tell if the lashes striping her back are welts or wounds, and a trickle of wetness might be sweat or water or blood.  
The whip comes down and _down_ across the mass of scars she already has. “ _Eight_ ,” she shouts, and even as the word tears itself free, she’s tumbling down somewhere dark inside her own mind. All that remembered pain spools out before her, endless, and by the time she yelps _eleven s_ he can feel the phantom brush of other hands, other whips and canes and _worse_. She sobs at _eighteen_. At _twenty-four_ , she starts screaming. Past that, she can’t keep count.

She’s lost in the wash of pain. Hot tears streak her face and it feels like she’s being torn open right down to the bone. She hears a dizzying rush of voices past and not present, here there is nothing but her own echoing, sobbing screams and the whistle crack of the whip. _Mocking laughter and viciousness and the phantoms of groping hands all over her. Fingers tearing at her hair, boots in her ribs, the sickening memory that sizzles like burnt flesh, the same way her previous Maestro had taken a cigar to her left breast years ago._

She loses count. Or she stops counting. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter. It does not stop. Her knees give out and she collapses against the railing, trying to hold herself up and blind through the pain of it. The hurt crowds out her imaginings. It’s too big to hold, and now she’s definitely bleeding. Julie can feel it seeping hot and thick into the waistband of her trousers, sticking to her skin. Black encroaches on her vision. Her lungs burn, and she’s sobbing like a child. It goes on, and on, and on.

  
Luke does not surface.

  
When Caleb stops, Julie is a wreck. She’s curled on her side on the decking making little animal sounds of pain. Sound fuzzes in and out. She can’t think. She can’t move; all she manages is one breath after the other, steady, even, and there’s not room inside her for any more than that.

Time skips like a juddering cart over stones. Caleb is there, cleaning slick red from that black whip, and then he’s not. Julie’s back burns like she’s been roasted alive. She tries to drag herself closer to the water and nearly blacks out. Every shift, every twitch makes her want to scream. She drifts in a red-grey haze for what seems like eternity.

A cool, wet hand comes to rest on the back of her neck. She flinches.

“You’re a mess,” Luke murmurs. Julie is beyond words; she trembles at the brush of Luke’s fingers, and she can feel the wet smear of blood. They come away red and Luke’s long, black tongue comes out to lick it from his fingertips. Julie whimpers.

It hurts so much that she feels almost numb. She has the absurd urge to laugh, but she holds it, and holds it, because she knows if she starts, she might not stop. She feels like she’s been skinned. She feels like she’s going to shake apart.  
Luke is holding his stolen metal bowl in his hands, filled to the brim with water. “This is going to hurt,” he says, and that’s all the warning Julie has before the water hits her flayed back.

_Salt water._

A horrible broken howl tears itself out of her throat. She thrashes and Luke holds her down. She’s on fire, _she’s dying_. Her fingernails scramble frantic against the decking and she screams, she _begs_. Luke is merciless as Julie’s blood washes away pink. When the bowl is empty Julie is beyond sobbing. All she can make are little broken sounds as she tries to crawl away.

Luke refills the bowl.

When her cuts are clean, Luke pulls Julie into his lap. He has a tail this time, Julie notes blurrily, and it feels odd under her. Cool and damp. Not slimy, but almost like thick, damp snakeskin. Luke’s claws poke at a gash in Julie’s lap and she whines low and broken.

“You’ve been through the wars, I see.” Luke’s claw traces an old, raised scar that’s bisected by a new one. When he uses Julie’s discarded dress to dab at the wounds Julie nearly bites through her lip. “You understand what he’s trying to do?”

Julie hisses at a too rough touch. She’s still too shattered to speak.

“You’re a lever,” he says, “he wants to use you to pry me open.” The dress is already a ruin, and Luke tears it into strips with a twist of his shark teeth. “I should drown you now and save us both the trouble.”

But he doesn’t. 

***

Julie wakes to Flynn carrying a tray of bandages and medical supplies, along with food similar to ones from the first night. Julie doesn’t move as Flynn assesses her wounds.

“Don’t blame Willie.” Flynn says and Julie doesn’t it, slaves and servants never get a say. 

There are two boys with Flynn, and they help to carry Julie, screaming and flailing, to one of the low lounges and lay her down.

“I have to clean these with disinfectant or infection will set in.”

After the salt water, there was no way Julie could handle disinfectant, but she grits her teeth and bares it and when it’s over, and the bandages are secure, Julie sits up.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Flynn eyes the tank and turns her attention back to Julie. “It isn’t personal, Julie, you know what life is like for your kind.”

Flynn was right, slaves were only used for certain roles, nothing more and nothing less. Julie surprised herself by still letting these events break her heart, she had been through the motions so many times before and yet-

“This is Reggie,” Flynn motions to a pale skinned, raven haired boy. He’s wearing a tightly clad black tunic, gold trim around the hem, a thick silver collar wrapped around his neck a chain connected to two matching silver bracelets on either wrist. “This is Alex.” The boy to Flynn’s right, blonde hair and blue eyes, a rarity in itself around here, he was in the exact same outfit as Reggie, chains and all.

“Am I the only plain thing in this house?” Julie wonders, she would laugh if it wasn’t so painful.

“We are valuable, but not as much as him.” Reggie says, speaking of Luke and his glass cage. “Most of us are rare, not as much as Luke though, when Mr. Covington purchased him it was all the house could talk about for months.”

“He really was a prize.” Alex adds. “Before him, it was always so boring and now there’s always something new happening _because_ of him.”

“We better go, it’s almost time.” Flynn leaves the tray of bandages and equipment by the lounge and they all say their goodbyes to Julie before leaving, the door closing and clicking behind them.

Julie attempts to open it with no luck. The door’s locked, as she expected, but the dull, constant ache won’t let her sit still. She hobbles around the circumference of the room, leaning on the walls and pushing curtains aside. Most are decorative, but one or two hide doors behind them. None lead out.  
One is a storage cabinet full of cleaners and long-handled brushes. For the tank, Julie imagines. One is an indoor bathroom, which she boggles at until she realizes she can hear running water, and that it must be routed to keep itself clean, unlike a privy. Another is an ostentatious bedroom. The bed is enormous and looks incredibly inviting, until she realizes that there are restraints built into the headboard.

Back out in the main room, the tray of food is still waiting. Julie bends down by aching inches and picks it up. She can feel every pull of muscle in her ruined back. When she finally manages to straighten up, she can’t lift her arms higher than her waist. The staircase seems insurmountable, but she steels herself. Grits her teeth hard. She’s done more difficult things after worse beatings and she can do this. It’s just one foot after the other, and again, and again.  
When she reaches the top, she has to lie down, dizzy and hurting. She thinks she’s reopened one of the cuts; she can feel the sharp sting of sweat and the trickle of blood. She’s too tired to do anything about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think!


	4. Captivation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie and Luke spend some time together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has graphic depictions of violence, sexual content and non consensual blow jobs.   
> If this bothers you, do not keep reading

Julie expects Caleb to come back, but he doesn’t. Not that day, or the next, or the one after. A new set of clothes shows up along with one of the food trays, and a white roll of bandages; Luke helps her change them, even if the soaking it takes to unstick them from her back makes her want to wriggle out of her skin.

She heals, slowly, and then welts and cuts that crisscross her back turn into a mix of scabbing and new pink scars. Julie can’t get a good look at it, but she knows what was there beforehand. This can’t possibly have made it any worse.

The worst thing- and it’s stupid, because there are so many more terrible places she could be right now- the _worst_ thing is how bored she is. The few rooms she can get to are almost bare. There’s not so much as a stray order to occupy her time, and she takes to spending most of her long, empty days up on the decking beside Luke’s tank.

At first Luke ignores her, but privately, Julie thinks Luke is even more bored than she is.

So, Julie waits, and eventually Luke rises from the deeps like a nightmare of fins and teeth. He doesn’t glow in the sunlight. Instead, he seems grey silver all over, with little patches of pale blue. Sometimes he pulls himself up on the deck, and sometimes he stays half submerged. Julie lets her feet trail in the cool water. With the sun streaming in through the windows, she can almost forget her circumstances.

Luke pushes up onto the platform like a dolphin beaching itself. Water pours from her body, and in the light, she seems to shine. The long sweep of his silver tail curls in front of him, his trailing blue fin-tips twitching like restless snakes. From head to fins, he’s probably nine feet long. Most of it is tail, but he’s not a small... whatever he is. Luke’s shoulders are broad, and next to him, Julie feels tiny.

Luke picks at a loop of Julie’s bandage with one dark talon. It comes undone in long white strips of fabric it’s the first time that it hasn’t stuck to her skin, and when it’s piled off to one side, Luke runs a fingertip down the ridges of rough scar tissue and Julie shivers. Luke’s touch is always cool.

“You won’t need these anymore, I think,” Luke says, “at least not this time.” “This time?”  
“You think it’s a trick he’d only use once?” His hand continues down, tracing the paths of old scars and new. There are plenty to choose from. Every time Luke crosses an old one, she can tell, by how the sensation turns into something dull and far away. The frills poking out through his dark hair twitch like a dog’s ears. “No. I think you’re my whipping girl. I’m too rare to damage, and you… well you’re not.”

Luke’s palm presses cold and dry against Julie’s lower back, and even in the warmth of the sun through the windows, she shivers. She can feel the distant prickle of Luke’s sharp nails. “I used to be. Careful. It doesn’t last long.”

“Perhaps not.” He sighs, and the gills at his neck puff out like settling feathers before flattening.

Cold seems to radiate from Luke’s skin like he’s made of ice. It feels wonderful against her damaged skin, and Julie leans into it before she realizes what she’s doing. Luke’s hand stays in place on her lower back, and it’s only after a minute that Julie realizes they might as well be cuddling. Luke is looking down at her with curiosity. Her lips part to speak, and then Luke’s mouth is on hers.

Julie’s eyes go wide. He’s too stunned to react; Luke’s mouth is as cool as the rest of him. He tastes like salt. When his tongue presses against Julie’s lip Julie _moans_ , and Luke laughs low in response. It’s only then that Julie has the presence of mind to push back, breaking the kiss. “You- what? What are you-?”

“You said it yourself,” Luke says, low and husky, “time is limited. Take advantage of what you have.”

“I don’t think Caleb would want-”

“Do you see him here? No?” He catches Julie’s bottom lip in a sucking kiss, and tugs at it delicately with his jagged shark’s teeth. Julie can feel every point of pressure, but they don’t break the skin. “I don’t care what he wants.”

Luke’s hand slides under Julie’s waistband to cup her ass and drag her closer. Luke is _strong_ ; Julie’s practically in his lap before she realizes what’s happening, and this time she’s close enough to see it when Luke looks down at her with predatory intent. She’s straddling that muscular fish tail, and it seems so much more substantial now that she’s touching it. She puts her hands on it, feels the delicate network of scales.

Luke’s hands trail down Julie’s chest, mapping out every single scar old and new. He cups her breasts in his large hand, flicks a thumb over the scar on her left breast, its risen and a few shades lighter than the rest of her skin. Julie’s forgotten where most of them came from, in all honesty; she’s a patchwork quilt of old pain, and there are places where she hardly feels when Luke presses his thumbs against them.

The melancholy of memory is driven from her mind when Luke ducks his head down and replaces his fingers with his mouth.

It’s a wet rasping squirm of tongue and teeth and Julie makes a shaky, gasping noise. She clutches at Luke’s shoulders, and _god_ , it’s been so long since anyone has touched her like this, touched her like she was more than something to be used and discarded. Luke sucks a nipple into his mouth and pinches it delicately between two teeth. Julie bucks. It’s a lightning bolt through her that goes straight to his groin, and when one of Luke’s hands kneads Julie’s ass she whimpers.

It’s embarrassing, really, how quickly she’s undone, but Julie finds she doesn’t much care. She’s flushed with need, panting into the crook of Luke’s shoulder and groaning his name as Luke pulls her loin cloth down to gain access to her sweet spots. Julie bucks at the slightest touch and bites her lip.

“There. You see?” Luke nips at Julie’s collarbone. “Use what time you’re given.”

As Luke’s tongue traces up the underside of her jaw, Julie’s hand moves to the side of Luke’s throat and there she finds the soft tangle of bioluminescent frills that protrude backwards from Luke’s jaw, and the hard ridge of his gill-covering. She strokes the fronds and Luke makes this surprised little groan into the soft skin of Julie’s shoulder that makes Julie’s stomach do a flip. She does it again, experimentally, and when Luke shudders and goes boneless against her, she follows it up with her tongue.

Luke’s skin is as salty as his lips. It feels tough and thick, but the delicate frills he has in place of ears are soft and thin under her tongue, like the webbing between fingers. Julie sucks the tip of one into her mouth and Luke _grinds_ against her, crushing their bodies together with a desperate growl.

Julie’s breath catches, and when she looks down, she sees something... new. There’s a sort of slit in the front of Luke’s tail where his cock should be, a little swollen and just beginning to push open. She reaches out to touch it, hesitant and curious. The moment her fingertips brush against it, Luke pushes into her hand with a low groan. It’s slick to the touch, and as she runs her thumb along the length of the slit it widens a little further, like something is pressing out from inside.

Inch by inch Luke’s cock unsheathes. It’s like nothing Julie’s ever seen before. It’s as dark as his skin but has an almost bluish tint, and a scattered pattern of the pale blue flecks that glow in low light. The underside is covered in ridges and a thin fleshy frill. When she touches it, it feels _hot_ , the only warm part of him.

Luke moans, eyes half-lidded. Julie is fascinated. It’s slick to the touch, and eventually Luke gets tired of her exploration and crushes the both of them together. His hand moves to Julie’s pussy, his thumb rolling over her wet slit, two fingers slipping inside, and when he rolls his hips Julie makes a broken sound.

Julie’s legs wrap around Luke’s hips and he crushes in as close as he can. She bites his lip and scrabbles at Luke for more, more, _more._ Luke makes a low, desperate sound as Julie grinds against him.   
Her hands scrabble against Luke’s back. Her nails rake skin that doesn’t give at all, and when they catch against the tightly-closed slashes of opercula on his ribs Luke groans and sinks his jagged teeth into the base of Julie’s neck. It’s a sharp, sudden spark of pain that tangles up inside her. The sound she makes is strangled and she doesn’t know if she wants to push towards Luke or away, and she ends up just _trembling_ , hips jerking into Luke’s firm grip as his slick alien cock grinds against Julie’s.

A bead of blood oozes from the puncture wounds and down to pool in the hollow of her collarbone. Luke follows it with a questing tongue and then drags her into an obscene, punishing kiss. His tongue is in her mouth and she thinks she cuts her lip on one of those jagged teeth, but she doesn’t care. There’s nothing but right here, right now, and she whines low in her throat as she feels the tightness of pleasure in her belly. Her toes curl on the damp decking.

She comes groaning and wrecked, her face buried in the crook of Luke’s shoulder as she comes undone around his fingers. “God,” she pants, “god, I, yes-” She clings to Luke all through it, mindless and trembling. Luke’s hand keeps moving on his own cock, faster and more erratic, and Julie watches in fascination.

She presses the pad of his thumb to the frill of flesh that runs the length of Luke’s cock. Luke groans, and Julie is transfixed by the silky texture of it. She imagines what it would feel like inside her, and even though she’s spent it sends a little shiver through her.

Luke goes almost still as Julie continues her exploration, though Julie can feel the tension in every line of his body; the slippery fluid that coats it is faintly bluish and it smears all over her fingers. She sucks on a fingertip, tentatively. It’s salty musk with a hint of something that’s almost sweet.

Luke groans as Julie sucks one finger clean, and then shifts back to bend down. Luke’s cock looks bigger up close. She gives the head of it a lick and tastes that slickness on her tongue. Luke looks down at her flushed and panting, and Julie barely gets farther than mouthing at the frilled, ridged underside before Luke is thrashing like an eel underneath her. He groans something incomprehensible, something in a language that’s sibilant and sharp as he comes all over Julie’s face. A drop or two gets in her mouth, but mostly it paints her chin and chest.

Julie can feel it sticky and hot on her skin, but the _look_ Luke gives her is hungry enough that she finds she doesn’t much care. Luke grinds something out in that same incomprehensible tongue, something with too many syllables and not enough vowels, and lifts Julie up to lick the come from her face in long rasping stripes.

Julie stays there, boneless with post-coital exhaustion as Luke’s hands move over her skin in lazy possessive sweeps. He murmurs things against Julie’s skin, and she just drifts.

She’s nearly asleep when Luke speaks, low and almost inaudible. “You should try to escape,” he murmurs, “it won’t end well for you, here.”

“Through locked doors and over high walls? Where would I even go?”  
“At least you’ve got legs.”  
“So do you.” Julie frowns and lifts his head. “Or- sort of. You did that thing. _You_ could escape easier than me.”  
Luke’s silent for a long moment. “Don’t tell Covington about that. He doesn’t know.” “All right, but-?”  
“It hurts,” says Luke, “and it’s temporary. I can’t keep that shape for long. I’d only get halfway to the harbor before I’d be crawling.” He lies back on the decking, and Julie goes down with him. With the sun on her back, Luke’s cool skin is soothing. “There’s a story- a true story- about us. A long time ago, a sea-girl fell in love with a man on land; but she could not go to him, and he could not swim, so she wished for legs. She got her wish, on a condition: that she prove her love through endurance. Every step on two legs would be stepping on knives, dancing on red-hot brass, and if he asked her to marry him, the pain would disappear, and she’d be like him, forever.”

He smiles oddly, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a bitter twist.  
“He didn’t want to marry her.”  
Julie’s not quite sure what to say to that. Still, she feels like she has to say _something_.

She levers himself up on one arm- and then there’s a noise from below. A door unlatching. They look at each other for a panicked split second and then Julie is diving one way and Luke another. Luke breaks the water’s surface without so much as a splash and Julie scrambles for her clothes.

She’s pulling her dress on over her head as she hears footsteps creaking up the stairs, and when Caleb broaches the top step, Julie is kneeling subserviently by the wall, a little dishevelled but clothed, and praying that Caleb can’t hear how loud her heart is pounding. She ducks her head. “Mr. Covington.”

Caleb, though, doesn’t look at him too hard. As the man’s gaze slips over him, Julie breathes a sigh of relief, but then-

“Slave,” says Caleb, “call him out of the water.”

Her breath catches in her throat. She can’t speak. Her back is still healing from the last whipping, and she can’t, _she can’t_.

“ _Slave_. Don’t make me repeat myself.”  
“Luke,” Julie says, her voice small, “come out of the water.”  
“Louder.”  
She shuts her eyes, takes a shaky breath, and _shouts_. “Luke, come out of the water!” Seconds tick by, one excruciating minute bleeding into the next, and nothing happens.

When she finally dares to crack an eyelid, Caleb is gazing down into the water, looking unsurprised. He carries the whip at his belt, this time, and Julie bites the inside of her cheek to swallow down the animal whine that’s threatening to escape.

Caleb’s thumb slides back and forth on the edge of shiny black leather. “You know what you have to do,” he calls to Luke, “it’s only you hurting this girl, not me. Each and every lash is because you can’t swallow your pride.” He turns to Julie. “Come here.”

“ _Please_ ,” the word tears itself out of Julie, sharp-edged and uncontrollable, “please, please don’t.” She presses further and further back against the metal rails as Caleb gets closer, and her begging turns into babbling. “Oh god, please, please-”

“Quiet. There’s nothing _you_ can do to avert this.” The whip unrolls with a flick of his wrist, and Julie whimpers with anticipated pain. “ _Him_ , on the other hand- well, feel free to beg.”

It’s worse, this time. The first lash tears open her scabs and new pink scars, and she can feel blood start to seep down her back in fat beads. It’s not long before she’s mindless with it, clinging to the railings and howling with a raw throat. In the pauses between blows she can hear her own sobs echoed back to her loud and humiliating, and her hands are white-knuckled on the railings. She’s forgotten her past and future. There’s only the hideous, broken-glass stretch of _now_ that goes on forever. It tears her to shreds. She feels skinned. She feels like an open wound, and oh god she can’t even imagine pulling herself back together after this.

She doesn’t realize it’s stopped until the _crack_ of the whip doesn’t come, and doesn’t come. Her back is fire and ruin. Her every shift is magnified a thousand-fold into something too big to bear. She can hear her own wet, rasping breaths and feel the slow trickle of blood down her back.

“Very good. Now come out of the water.”

Julie doesn’t understand what it means until she hears the splash. She slumps against the railings and turns her head just enough to see Luke levering himself up onto the deck like an eel, looking murderous.

 _He gave in_ , Julie thinks dully, _he gave in for my sake_.

Luke snaps at Caleb with his teeth when the man gets too close, and Caleb flicks the whip at Julie. It hits her on the hip and Julie makes a strangled sound. Luke’s expression gets even darker.

“Behave, now,” Caleb says lazily, “if you can manage that, you won’t have any problems at all.”

This time, when Caleb reaches out one bronzed hand to pat Luke on the head like an obedient dog, Luke just grits his teeth and takes it. Julie can see his sharp nails digging furrows in the decking.

“There. Wasn’t that simple?” He coils the whip back at his side, in easy reach. His fingers card through Luke’s, dark hair and into the frilly mass of luminescent tendrils behind his jaw, and Luke looks like he wants to strangle the man. His expression isn’t all anger, though- there’s a sadness there, too, a kind of despair. “You want to keep her whole? It’s easy. All you have to do is listen.”

Luke’s lip curls. He moves like he’s going to attack Caleb but he _stops_ , so quickly that it’s like it never happened at all. When he speaks, his voice is low and full of hate. “What do you want?”

“Only your obedience.” Either Caleb doesn’t notice Luke’s barely leashed anger, or he’s putting it _beneath_ his notice. Julie’s sure that if the man wasn’t certain about what Luke would do, especially with all his natural weaponry, he wouldn’t be getting so close. That thought’s more disheartening than anything. “Say, _yes, Master.”_

Julie is shocked, on the very first day Caleb had made it clear that he did not enjoy such titles yet was wanting look to use them. A true show of dominance over the caged boy. Luke keeps his silence. He stares at the ground with his uncanny eyes and Caleb doesn’t prompt him again. He just stands there, waiting, _certain_ , and finally, Luke speaks.

“Yes, Master.” He grimaces like the words are acid on his tongue.

Julie wants to go to him. To make this _better_ , somehow, but she gets as far as lifting her hand and it sends a wave of crippling agony through her so terrible that she nearly passes out. Neither of the other two seem to notice, and by the time she’s blinking away the dark spots that hover in front of her eyes, Caleb has undone his trousers, and Luke looks like he wants to be somewhere, _anywhere_ else. Caleb’s cock hangs thick and hard between his thighs, purple-tinged and intimidating.

“Suck my cock,” Caleb says pleasantly, “and no teeth, or I’ll cut her fingers off and make you eat them.”

Luke runs his long black tongue over his glass-trap teeth and Julie can see the tremble in his shoulders, the tremor that anyone else might take for fear or disgust but Julie can tell is pure fury. If looks could kill, Caleb would be dead a hundred times over. Luke’s glare is poisoned arrows, it’s a slash to the gut, and as he opens his mouth, it’s a promise of revenge delivered tenfold. Caleb either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Caleb stays still as Luke curls his tongue around the man’s shaft. He rests his hand on top of Luke’s head without pushing, making the other man do all the work- making him complicit in this, and as Luke covers his teeth with his lips and takes Caleb’s cock into his mouth, there’s a moment where Julie can tell he wants to bite down and damn the consequences.

The moment passes.

It’s a sloppy and unenthusiastic blowjob. Julie finds herself staring at the ground, trying to block out the wet sounds. She can’t, though; it’s like a drill boring into her skull, and the longer it goes on the worse she feels. This is her fault. She’s the leverage, and Luke is cracking.

“Come on, now,” Caleb chides, “don’t sulk. You were going to give in eventually. Use your tongue. Mm, yes. Like that.”

Julie looks up in time to hear Caleb’s satisfied sigh and see Luke’s mouth twist at the bitter taste of come. He spits it at Caleb’s feet and bares his teeth in defiance. Caleb only laughs.

“Very good.” Caleb is already buttoning his trousers. He turns his back like he’s already forgotten about the both of them, and he’s already started down the stairs when he calls back. “I’ll have some salve and bandages sent up for your little friend. I will also instruct William to allow _her_ to meet the others. Call it a reward for good behaviour.”

Julie sees the moment that Luke’s ugly ocean of hate turns inward, and wishes there was something she could say, but she can’t find a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the xenophillia you animals

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaannnnnnyyyyyyyywaaaaaaaaay, tell me what you think!


End file.
